Shadow of the Past
by ariadne melody
Summary: Version of 2.14. Elena and Stefan go to the Gilbert lakehouse.


A variation on 2.14. As always, reviews are welcome.

As the late afternoon light filtered in through the window, Elena blinked drowsily, waking from a short nap. She smiled as she slowly recognized her surroundings: clothes strewn about on the blue rug, her old books stacked haphazardly on the bookshelf, the remainders of past vacations still on the dresser and in the closet. The same view from the window- the lake glittering in the sun, looking inviting and open and perfect for swimming despite the temperature.

Besides her Stefan makes an odd half-snoring noise and Elena stifles a giggle. Sleeping Stefan is adorable. She turns in his arms to stare at him, stalker that she is. By far this has got to be one of her favorite things to do, to lie in his arms and watch him sleep. Not that she'd ever, ever admit this to anyone because, quite frankly, she knows it's kind of creepy. There's just something so peaceful about his face when he sleeps. His expression is calm and relaxed now, his hair rumpled against her pillow patterned with the pink flowers. Right now they're both safe and warm and content. It's been that way all day.

In the car Stefan was the most relaxed she'd seen in weeks, happily singing along to Bon Jovi and making Elena get the hiccups from laughing. At times he looked at her with that look, the one that makes her shiver and long for just one thing; she almost told him to pull off anywhere so they could just fuck in the backseat. He hadn't exactly made things easier later, in the supplies store. The way he'd lean close and whisper, the way his hand lingered under her jacket. As he hunted to find various ingredients, she plotted on what they would do at the cabin: sex (obviously). watching movies, talking, reading, resting, sex, sex, and more sex. Relaxation and not thinking about the bad stuff.

It had been startling to see the cabin at first. Eerie to step inside and feel the ghosts of her parents lingering. No one had been there since the accident, and everything was just the same as the last time they were there, right down to Jeremy's forgotten homework and her mom's scribbled to-do lists on the fridge, a pair of sunglasses left on the counter. She bit back a grin as she thought about the counter- she would never look at that in the same way again. Not after Stefan had spent over an hour there bent over her, his tongue and hands running over over, sliding in her, making her scream and moan his name. No, the counter would never look the same.

Stefan sighed and his arms tightened around her as he shifted slightly in his sleep, his nose twitching. "'Lena," he murmured.

"I'm right here," she whispered, pressing her arms against his chest, pulling herself up a bit so her face was even with his. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off again.

There was a spectacular sunset outside, from what Stefan could see of it. Tomorrow night maybe they would sit on the back porch or on the dock and watch it. He pictured them on the porch swing, a blanket wrapped around them, or maybe on her room's balcony, lying on a deck chair. Or maybe they'd be distracted like tonight, he grinned and felt somewhat like a sex maniac, decided that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing for the time being.

Elena's room here was messier than her room back in Mystic Falls. The top of the dresser had a scattered array of make-up and books, random notebooks and CDs and some socks. An old pair of hiking boots were flung into the corner of the room, as if Elena had just come up from a family hike and ripped them off. And of course, their clothing lay in various piles on the floor. In Stefan's opinion that only added to the charm.

Elena's stomach makes a loud growling noise and she sighs, not opening her eyes. Briefly he wonders if he should slip down to the kitchen and make dinner- is there such a thing as dinner in bed? They are definitely doing breakfast in bed in the morning. Her stomach growls again, a longer one this time, comically so. He starts to slide out of bed when Elena suddenly rolled on top of him, pinning him to the bed and murmurs, "Don't you dare."

"Hi," he murmured back, reaches up to cup her face as they kiss. "You hungry?"

Slowly her eyes blinked open and look down at him. He feels as though he could stare into those eyes forever. "A little," she admits and her stomach emits an enormous growl that both of them laugh at.

Kissing her again he rolls them over so he's on top. "I'll go make dinner- you can just stay here."

"No, I'll be down in a minute," she says. She watches him dress, smiling to herself and wondering how difficult it would be to get him to spend the rest of the weekend completely naked. Probably not the difficult, all things considered. She hears him stumble on the stairs, tripping over her discarded boots, and swear lightly. It's really his own fault- he was the one to yank off her boots as they stumbled up the stairs to her room while she had focused on his shirts.

Despite the cold they eat on the porch, talking lazily about nothing. Elena can't get over how good the food is, and decides she will have to get Stefan to cook for her more often. It's been a while since she's had a meal like this- Jenna is more of a take-out and frozen dinner queen. A couple of weeks after the funeral, when the casseroles had finally run out, Jenna had nearly started a fire when she attempted to make pancakes. The experiment hasn't been repeated since.

"You should cook more often," she says when they're washing dishes. He smiles lightly, says, "Lexi and I once took a pastry class together. It didn't go very well."

"Really?"

"I might have gotten a little over-competitive," he admits sheepishly.

"How can you get over-competitive in a pastry class?" she asks as she rescues their wine glasses as well as the bottle.

"When it's more of a pastry race- fifteen minutes to mix this, ten minutes to mix that. I got a little, uh, carried away, and, well, kind of freaked everyone out," he says. "Lexi let me have it."

"You could have a tv show- Stefan Salvatore, Speed Chef," Elena smirked and poured more wine for both of them. "Maybe we should throw a dinner party sometime, show your skills off to people."

"That sentence could be taken in so many ways," he wiggled his eyebrows as she laughed. A playful smirk crossed his face as he seized Elena and spun her towards the couch, gently pushing her back on it. Her giggles gradually faded as Stefan kissed her, paying particular attention to her neck, his tongue tracing patterns on her skin. Stefan scooped his hands underneath her body, slid them under the back of her shirt. She's already taking his off.

Afterwards they lie entwined together on the couch, Stefan's arms around Elena as he planted lazy, sloppy kisses on her forehead, listening to her heart beat quickly.

"Why didn't we come here before," he murmurs into her hair and then regrets the question, knowing from watching her earlier all the memories this place has. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine," she gently traces his tattoo. "It's weird being back here, but it's nice- being here with you, I mean."

He kissed the top of her head, rubbed her back.

"Want to watch a movie?" she asks a bit later. He sleepily nods and she climbs out of his arms, wrapping a blanket around herself as she walked to the DVD cabinet, feeling Stefan's eyes on her. "Whatcha in the mood for?"

"Nothing involving werewolves."

"Such a shame," she mock sighs , selected a movie and crossed to the TV. "I'm in the mood for fun and romantic."

"Always good words to hear."

Without looking at the disc she slides it into the DVD player, too eager to be back in Stefan's arms. She climbs into his lap, leaning back against his chest and wrapping the blanket around them both, smiling when he resumes kissing her neck. Maybe they should skip the movie and just head to the shower or the bedroom or-

"Oh my god," she suddenly said when she actually looked at the TV screen. Instead of the beginning of The Princess Bride, they were watching one of her dad's home videos, an old one, judging from her size and Jeremy's hair. When he was seven he'd gone through a phase of not wanting to cut it, of wanting to look just like her.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the old footage- all centered around Elena and Jeremy. Swimming, running around, attempting to fish. Occasionally Elena's mother appeared, always with a sardonic smile and an eye-roll. Stefan grabbed Elena's hand and gently squeezed it, unsure what to say, what to do.

Elena turned off the tv and bit her lip, her breathing shaking. Not looking at Stefan she mumbled, "Guess that wasn't the right disc."

Gently rubbing her back, Stefan waited for her to continue.

"My mom- she was always putting DVDs, CDs, back in the wrong places. We just got used to it- Dad said it added a sense of excitement to the ordinary things," she tries to laugh but something caught in her throat.

"After the accident I watched a lot of these movies- trying to punish myself, I guess. Forcing myself to look at them, at us, at what I had destroyed."

"Elena, you-"

"Please, Stefan. I know it sounds melodramatic and everything, but it is true. If I hadn't gone to that stupid party and gotten wasted, my parents would still be alive, Jeremy would still be normal, I-" she broke off, not wanting to finish that sentence. What would she be if her parents were still alive?

"You wouldn't have to deal with vampires, werewolves, sun-moon curses, Originals, dopplegangers," Stefan said, sounding far calmer than he was actually feeling. "You'd be... normal. Happy."

"Or not," Elena sighs. "Katherine would still be after me, Elijah would still be after me, and I wouldn't know what to do, who to go to. Tyler would still have the werewolf... curse. So really, I probably would be worse off.

"You know what I couldn't stop thinking about?" Elena continues. "How if I just got a second chance I could fix everything. I would make the opposite choice- I'd chose my family."

What she wanted to say next was, That's what I chose this time. She wanted to tell Stefan more about the deal with Elijah, the feeling she had that the deal was about protecting everyone except her. She wanted to tell him that really, she was at peace with that knowledge. Not happy, obviously- she didn't want to die. Dying at seventeen? Leaving Stefan and Jeremy and Bonnie and Caroline and everyone else? No. But dying knowing that they'll be safe? That's what matters. Protecting them matters. Besides, people have died for her actions before, and she's not willing for it to happen again.

She's too much of a coward, though, too afraid to tell him about Elijah and his careful wording. So instead she looks at him and lovingly touches his face.

"Do you know how much I love you?" she whispers.

He responds with a forceful kiss, his arms crushing her against his chest. Yanking on his hair, Elena stands and tugs him toward the stairs, intent on not breaking the kiss as they stumble over their discarded clothes, which seems to have become the pattern of the day. In the middle of the room Stefan began to steer them not towards the stairs, but to her parents' bedroom. Both forbidding and tantalizing. The land on the bed, Stefan planting sloppy kisses over her body, Elena already groaning and sliding her hands over his hips.

After all, the night is still young.


End file.
